Encountering cannibalism a cultural history /

by Watson, Kelly L.

Erin Labbie, Advisor " Encountering Cannibalism: A Cultural History " explores the relationship between the trope of cannibalism and the notions of civilization and savagery. This thesis intervenes in scholarship on cannibalism by analyzing the surrounding discourses from a cultural studies position. Despite the advancements in scholarship in the past fifty years that have seen the breakdown of many binary systems, criticism that addresses cannibalism continues to perpetuate the civilization/savagery binary. Working from a meta-discursive position in American Culture Studies, my thesis interrogates the history of cannibalism in order to understand this stubborn persistence of the civilization/savagery binary in studies of cannibalism across other disciplines. Tracing the development of cannibal discourse, we discover the place of the cannibal within a fantasy of wholeness of American identity. The cannibal is both a disruption of civilization and a foundational element as neither civilization nor savagery can exist independently. The trope of cannibalism allows the scholar to make connections and draw conclusions across disciplines, time periods, and theoretical positionings, and provides a unique entry point for discussions of race and gender.